Lean Austria

Last week SAP announced Business By Design. But will SAP conquer a new market this time?

In the German magazine Spiegel you can read an interesting article about SAP: SAP executive Léo Apotheker:

“I have to learn the language of small to medium-sized businesses,”

continuing:

For SAP to continue achieving double-digit growth figures, it would have to acquire new customers: small and mid-sized businesses. In this market, only one third of companies had already purchased SAP’s “old” software packages, Business One and All-in-One.

via Michael Krigsman who concluded “can SAP learn to speak SME fluently?”

Example 1: SAP entered CRM and sold systems to existing costumers, but could not compete with giants like Selesforce.com and Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com did make fun of them various times, e.g. “If SAP’s CRM software is any good, then why doesn’t SAP use it to manage their own customer relationships?”

Example 2: In 2002 SAP acquired TopManage Financial Solutions LTD and introduced Business One. I would not call Business One a big success today.

Example 3: Business By Design?

SAP admits it has missed SME markets up to now -which surprises. (By the way: “One third of companies had already purchased SAP packages” is very optimistic, according to a German survey from 2004 it’s 5 to 15%) At the same time SAP promises to change - once again.

It would be great if Business By Design could cover business needs for a reasonable price. Nothing against SAP as the next big innovator, as long it really helps companies. But I keep my doubts.

further reading:
ERP-Hersteller kommentieren SAPs neues Mittelstandsangebot
SAP aims to ride smaller-business wave (via Evolving Excellence)